Once again, your reactive response strikes me as uncalled for over-sensitivity. I have not called for “Church bashing.” Nor do I believe my conduct displays such.
I hope you’ll continue participating in the discussion without resorting to mischaracterizing the context of what I’ve said. Your voice and perspective are important and add value and the balance of additional viewpoints. In particular, now that some of the verbiage has been released, I’m hoping to hear if you feel the wording of this legislation mitigates any of the concerns you expressed previously, and any other thoughts you have on it.

One other thought, KLindley:... 40 years ago is NOT that long ago, for some of us, and is well within my own lifetime and the lifetimes of friends and acquaintances I personally know who experienced some of the things that’ve been discussed here. To dismiss or downplay the traumatic experiences they endured, or to try to suggest they are unrelated to the gains we’ve made as a society in the last few decades is to ignore our own history. As the saying goes, those who ignore history do so at their own peril and may be doomed to repeat it.

Not everything must follow any given individual’s logic. What is important and relevant to some may not be important or relevant to others. The board discourages, even prohibits, nannying; we’re all entirely free to skip over posts that we may find irrelevant.

A good article from Deseret News. Looks like a lot of effort was given to be fair in this legislation. Kudos to Utah!:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.deseretnews.com/article/900056882/we-dont-want-to-lose-any-of-you-utah-legislators-unveil-bill-banning-conversion-therapy-for-gay-teens-hoping-to-prevent-suicides-hb399.amp

This link came across my social media feed again this morning in conjunction with this latest news about the church. It strikes me as worthy and relevant to re-post it for any who missed it previously. The entire talk with worth a listen, and it includes first hand accounts by some who underwent electroshock therapy:
https://affirmation.org/science-vs-dogma-biology-challenges-the-lds-paradigm/

Yep. My last comment about you dismissing the majority of the entire substance of my post, and then ending with a trite question, still stands.
You clearly aren’t worth my time or effort in responding, until you do your own due dilligence (a.k.a. Research).

I’m not going to play a game where I put a lot of thought and effort into a post, you disregard any of the substance if what I wrote, then dismissively ask a single question that isn’t even reflective of the merits of my post.
I’ll let the following 2009 ADL Fact Sheet on the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (below) field the substance of your question.
A few other good links:
https://www.justice.gov/crt/hate-crime-laws
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/civil-rights/hate-crimes
https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime
If you genuinely want answers to your questions, look into the laws, rulings, and statistics that can be found by other simple Google searches, since you appear to ignore everything I’m writing anyway.
Beyond that, I’m content in knowing that our nation’s legislators, laws and top courts repeatedly reflect and reinforce the views I’ve been sharing about Hate Crime Legislation, and fail to support your objections thereto.

Your arguments are over two decades late.
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Constitutionality and implementation of Hate Crime Legislation over 25 years ago, and literally every state in the nation signed an amicus brief in support of said legislation.
It’s clear you disagree with it, but hate crime laws have been a reality for quite some time, and with broad support in every state.
Further, I think it’s easy to verbally eschew hate crimes protections when one hasn’t been the brunt of them or if one lives in a predominantly religiously-homogenous bubble like 2019 Provo... But I can’t help but think that the Saints who faced extreme persecution in the early days of the LDS Faith would have welcomed the legal protections afforded to victims of hate crimes committed in the name of religion.

Provoman,
To echo what Gray said, hate crimes legislation protects individuals on the basis of the classification in question however they relate to the characteristic in consideration.
Thus, Religious-based hate crimes legislation is equally applicable in protecting those who do affirmatively self-identify as a member of any given religion (Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, Latter-day Saints, Quakers, Zoroastrians, Unitarian Universalists, etc) AND those who do NOT identify with or as a member of ANY religion (atheists, agnostics, unbelievers, non-believers, secular humanists, members of no Faith, etc).
Race-based hate crimes legislation is equally applicable in protecting those who do affirmatively self-identify as a member of any single given race (Native American, Caucasian/white, African-American/black, Latino, Asian, etc) AND members of any given mixed racial backgrounds.
Gender/Gender Identity/Sexual Orientation-based hate crimes legislation is equally applicable in protecting those who do affirmatively self-identify as a member of any binary/singular gender or sexual orientation (male, female, straight, gay, etc) AND those who do NOT identify with or as a member of any binary/single gender or sexual orientation (gender non-conforming, non-binary gender, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, etc).
Therefore, if matriculation is under consideration for inclusion as a hate crime, the law would equally apply to and protect all citizens attending any given university (BYU, Utah State, U of U, UVU, etc) , AND any and all citizens attending no university at all (in your case, non-enrolled stay-at-home mothers).
Really. This isn't rocket science, people. Hate crimes legislation is in place to promote peaceful coexistence in a pluralistic society. xy
When the law says, "it's a more serious crime to beat someone up on the basis of their gender/religion/race/national origin/sexual orientation/etc., it's not promoting or protecting so-called "special interest groups" over others. The law isn't saying "it's not OK to beat up minorities, but it's OK to beat up majorities," as some are asserting here. Rather, the law is saying "It's not OK to beat up ANYONE on the basis of their XYZ characteristic."
In a perfect world--the type of world in which all members of society don't violently harm or kill others based on the different protected-classification characteristics that we may have from one another--- we wouldn't have to have hate-crimes legislation. Until we live in a society that has that level of unity (Zion?), hate crimes legislation are necessary to promote equality despite differences.

Storm,
Yes or no: do you believe whites are members of a protected class by their classification as white?
EDIT: on second thought, let me rephrase the question to clarify what I meant by the above question, which upon reflection is too ambiguous:
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?: “Hate crimes law, as it currently stands in the U.S., treats caucasians as a protected class.”

Storm Rider, please do not presume to tell me "what I know." You are clearly misinformed.
To start with, the law clearly considers "intent" and has long done so, as others have deftly explained earlier in this thread.
Legal and criminal protections based on "protected classes" don't single out smaller or minority "groups of people" that receive special protections that aren't afforded other, larger majority groups. Protections based on "protected classes" protect EVERYONE, regardless of how they identify or relate to the characteristic(s) which are protected; even if or when they don't relate to it at all (i.e. religion, disability, national origin, etc.)
Said differently, "protected classes" are the personal attributes or characteristics upon and by which we as a society have identified and declared that we will not tolerate discrimination. In so doing, we all are protected from one another, regardless of how we identify.
Your entire argument that 'there are some groups that are protected more than others' crumbles when one recognizes that hate crimes are even committed and prosecuted based on some victims' status as a membership of a majority group--not only by those in the minority. Hate crimes are recognized and prosecuted even when committed by perpetrators who share a minority characteristic of any given "protected class" against victims who share characteristics of the majority.
For example, in 2016, the percentage of racial hate crimes against whites rose at a higher rate than those against blacks (though hate crimes against blacks still represented the vast majority of racially-motivated hate crimes). Racial minorities can commit and are prosecuted for committing hate crimes against the white majority. The same is true for any other protected classes.
Hate crimes can and are also recognized and prosecuted when members of minority groups commit hate crimes against citizens who share their own same attributes. Blacks can commit hate crimes against fellow blacks (or members of any race), just as gays can commit hate crimes against fellow gays (or straights).
Maybe it's helpful to think that "protected classes" aren't nouns----such protections don't protect groups of people.
Rather, think of "protected classes" as adjectives ---they are the characteristics, which define all citizens in some fashion whether we identify or not with any aspect of said characteristic, upon and by which we as a society eschew discrimination and hate-motivated criminal intent.
Our Constitution calls for equality and justice for all. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to identify "protected classes," but since our founding fathers recognized we aren't perfect, they sought to form "a more perfect union." Even as they sought to establish laws which mandated equality, they clearly were subject to their own biases (as evidenced by our nation initially identifying blacks as the property of whites, wives as the property of their husbands, etc.). But they provided the mechanism for our society to continue to recognize newly-enumerated rights based on previously unrecognized attributes, a.k.a. the 'protected classifications' as they relate to and protect us all.

Totally incorrect.
Hate crime prohibitions based on religious bias equally protect adherents of all religions just as much as they protect those of no religious affiliation. These laws say a perpetrator will be punished more severely for using religion or any lack thereof as related to the intent of committing a crime. Those who profess or practice any given religion aren’t protected more or less than those that are atheist or agnostic—the law seeks to protect us all from hate crimes based on religion or any lack thereof.
In the same way, hate crime prohibitions based on racial bias equally protect all citizens of every race and equally regardless of race.
And similarly, hate crime prohibitions based on gender expression or sexual orientation bias equally protect citizens regardlesss of sexual orientation, gender, or gender expresssion—they prohibit criminal intent based on sexual orientation directed at anyone, whether straight, gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, etc.
Hate crime legislation protects us all.